This document discusses the legal principles of remoteness of damage and nervous shock in tort law. It provides an overview of the tests used to determine if an injury is proximate or remote, including the tests of reasonable foresight and directness. It also examines key cases that established the law around liability for nervous shock without physical impact, such as Wilkinson v. Downton. The document serves to outline and analyze the key concepts and case law relating to remoteness of damage and nervous shock in torts.
This document discusses the legal principles of remoteness of damage and nervous shock in tort law. It provides an overview of the tests used to determine if an injury is proximate or remote, including the tests of reasonable foresight and directness. It also examines key cases that established the law around liability for nervous shock without physical impact, such as Wilkinson v. Downton. The document serves to outline and analyze the key concepts and case law relating to remoteness of damage and nervous shock in torts.
This document discusses the legal principles of remoteness of damage and nervous shock in tort law. It provides an overview of the tests used to determine if an injury is proximate or remote, including the tests of reasonable foresight and directness. It also examines key cases that established the law around liability for nervous shock without physical impact, such as Wilkinson v. Downton. The document serves to outline and analyze the key concepts and case law relating to remoteness of damage and nervous shock in torts.
This document discusses the legal principles of remoteness of damage and nervous shock in tort law. It provides an overview of the tests used to determine if an injury is proximate or remote, including the tests of reasonable foresight and directness. It also examines key cases that established the law around liability for nervous shock without physical impact, such as Wilkinson v. Downton. The document serves to outline and analyze the key concepts and case law relating to remoteness of damage and nervous shock in torts.
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LAW OF TORTS PROJECT
‘REMOTENESS OF DAMAGE AND NERVOUS SHOCK’ SUBMITTED TO: DR. RITA
DAVINDER SINGH ROLL NO.31/22 BA LL.B 2
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to express my special gratitude to my teacher Dr. RIta,
who gave me the golden opportunity to do this wonderful project on the topic ‘Remoteness of Damages and Nervous Shock’ I would also like to extend my gratitude to the librarian of my department for providing me with all the books that were required. I would also like to thank my parents and friends who helped me in finalizing this project within the limited time frame. 3
INTRODUCTION The doctrine of Remoteness of Damage There are certain circumstances in which a wrongful act produces a series of consequences. In other words, when a tort is committed, the injury may be proximate or too remote. Natural justice demands that a person should not be put to heavy liability commensurate to the series of consequences and hence, law provides remedy to injure if the injury is proximate and not for the injury which is too remote.
For example: A beats B slightly with a hand stick. If B is slightly
injured, the injury is proximate, for which A is liable. Suppose B dies, the injury is too remote for which A cannot be made liable. No one can be held for all consequences of his wrongful act because there is no end to the consequences of an act. He will be liable only for those consequences which are direct consequence of his negligent act. According to this principle, the plaintiff has to prove relationship between cause and reason for getting damages for harm caused by the defendant’s act, that is, he has to show relationship between the act of the defendant and the injury caused by the act. If the harm caused to the plaintiff is not direct consequence of the 4
defendant’s act, it will be considered too remote and plaintiff may
not be entitled to any damages.
PRINCIPLE The doctrine of ‘ Remoteness of Damage’ is enshrined in the Latin maxim “injure non remota causa sed proxima spectatur” which means, the immediate, not the remote cause of any event is to be considered. This doctrine is also called as “the Doctrine of Natural and Probable Consequence. 5
TESTS OF REMOTENESS To determine whether the injury is proximate or too remote, the Court adopts the following two tests:
TEST OF REASONABLE FORESIGHT
According to this test, if the consequences of a wrongful act could have been foreseen by a reasonable man, they are not too remote. If, on the other hand, a reasonable man would not have foreseen the consequences, they are too remote. According to the opinion of Pollock C.B. in Rigby v. Hewitt,' and Greenland v. Chaplin, the liability of the d-efendant is only for those consequences which could have been foreseen by a reasonable man placed in the circumstances of the wrongdoer. According to this test, if I commit a wrong, I will be liable only for those consequences which I could foresee, for whatever could not have been foreseen is too remote a consequence of my wrongful act. 6
The Wagon Mound Case
This case established that, within the principles of remoteness of damage, damage will only be compensable where that damage could have been reasonably foreseen by the reasonable man.The defendants ship, the Wagon Mound was refuelling another ship and negligently spilt oil into the water, no effort was made to clear up the oil and it quickly spread to the claimant’s wharf. Welding was taking place on the wharf and sparks caused debris underneath the wharf to ignite which then caused the oil to ignite, causing significant damage by largely destroying the wharf and the equipment on it. It is not just that a defendant is liable for all the outcomes of their negligent behaviour, just because they have resulted from the behaviour. Damage will only be compensable where that damage could have been reasonably foreseen by the reasonable man. 7
TEST OF DIRECTNESS The test of reasonable foresight was rejected and the test of directness was considered to be more appropriate by the Court of Appeal in Re Polemis and Furness, Withy & Co. Ltd. According to the test of directness, a person is liable for all the direct consequences of his wrongful act, whether he could have foreseen them or not; because consequences which directly follow a wrongful act are not too remote. The only question which has to be seen in such a case is whether the defendant's act is wrongful or not, i.e., could he foresee some damage. If the answer to this question is in the affirmative, i.e., if he could foresee any damage to the plaintiff, then he is liable not merely for those consequences which he could have foreseen but for all the direct consequences of his wrongful act. 8
Re Polemis and Furness vs. Withy &
Co. (1921) The defendant chartered the plaintiff’s ship for loading fuel oil. Due to normal leakage, there was a petrol vapour in the hold. An iron plank fell down into the hold due to negligence of the defendant’s servant. As a result, there was a spark resulting in ignition and the ship was completely destroyed. Plaintiff sued the defendant for damages.
The House of Lords, applying the above principle, opined that
the test of forseeability followed till 1921 is no more a law and held the defendant liable adopting the principle of directness. 9
NERVOUS SHOCK This branch of law is comparatively of recent origin. It provides relief when a person may get physical injury not by an impact, e.g., by stick, bullet or sword but merely by a nervous shock through what he has seen or heard.
As far back as 1888, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in
Victorian Railway Commissioner v. Coultas,' did not recognize injury caused by a shock sustained through the medium of eye or ear without direct contact. They thought that an action could not be sustained unless there was a physical impact or something akin to it. Not long after the above stated decision we, however, find that injury caused by nervous shock, without there being any physical impact, has been recognized. The crude view that the law should take cognizance only of physical injury resulting from actual impact has been discarded, and it is now well recognized that an action will lie for injury by shock sustained through the medium of the eye or the ear, without direct contact.
CASE LAW OF NERVOUS SHOCK
Wikinson v. Downton 10
In 1897, in Wilkinson v. Downton,' the defendant was held
liable when the plaintiff- suffered nervous shock and got seriously ill on being told falsely, by way of practical joke, by the defendant that her husband had broken both the legs in an accident. Dulieu v. White and Sons In Dulieu v. White and Sons also, an action for nervous shock resulting in physical injuries was recognized. There the defendant's servant negligently drove a horse van into a public house and the plaintiff, a pregnant woman, who was standing there behind the bar, although not physically injured, suffered nervous shock, as a result of which she got seriously ill and gave premature birth to a stillborn child. The defendants were held liable. Dooley v. Cammell In Dooley v. Cammell Laird and Co, the plaintiff, the driver of a crane, suffered nervous shock when he saw that by the breaking of a rope of the crane, its load fell into the hold of a ship where some men were at work. The rope had broken due to the negligence of the defendants and they were held liable to the plaintiff. 11
REFERENCES
Law of Torts by R.K. Bangia
The Wagon Mound Case Re Polemis and Furness vs. Withy & Co. (1921) Wikinson v. Downton Dulieu v. White and Sons Dooley v. Cammell
